Browsing by Subject "developmental work research"
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(2014)Objectives: The Finnish social and health care system is currently under transformation. The objective of this thesis was to chart the on-going concept change of the development system of Finnish social and health care and Innovillage's role in it within the theoretical framework of the third generation activity theory. Innovillage is a new national open innovation environment for developers in the field of health and welfare developed during the years 2009–2013. The research studies this issue through two research questions: (1) How the development system of Finnish social and health care's object and division of labor are changing?; (2) What does Innovillage tell about the concept change of the development system? The aim is to chart the features of the new emerging activity concept of the development system by depicting the changes in the object and the division of labor as well as to examine the development system's contradictions as manifested in Innovillage. Methods: The research questions have been analyzed through historical analysis and empirical data. The empirical data of this thesis constituted of nine individual interviews which were gathered during the summer and early fall of 2013. Six interviewees were representatives of the funding and developer organizations of Innovillage and three represented grassroots professionals involved with Innovillage. The research method was empirical and qualitative and the research process has been primarily guided by the data. The qualitative results were derived from the empirical data through content analysis. Historical analysis of this thesis was made based on the literature. The findings were interpreted with activity theoretical notions of activity concept, object, division of labor, and contradiction. Results and conclusions: The division of labor in the new emerging activity concept of the development system is, ideally, open and networked and the object of developing takes the customer or the client as well as the implementation phase of the created services or solutions into account. Currently, cross-sectorial co-operation has increased slightly especially between funders of the development system but, simultaneously, co-operation between grassroots professionals has diminished. Innovillage itself as well as its tools have supported co-operation within the development system but, according to the results, still fail to take the customer or the client into account. The current secondary contradictions between the division of labor and other elements of the development system seem to stem from the new tools that have been implemented to the development system by Innovillage.
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(2000)This study examines supervisors' emerging new role in a technical customer service and home customers division of a large Finnish telecommunications corporation. Data of the study comes from a second-generation knowledge management project, an intervention research, which was conducted for supervisors of the division. The study exemplifies how supervision work is transforming in high technology organization characterized with high speed of change in technologies, products, and in grass root work practices. The intervention research was conducted in the division during spring 2000. Primary analyzed data consists of six two-hour videorecorded intervention sessions. Unit of analysis has been collective learning actions. Researcher has first written conversation transcripts out of the video-recorded meetings and then analyzed this qualitative data using analytical schema based on collective learning actions. Supervisors' role is conceptualized as an actor of a collective and dynamic activity system, based on the ideas from cultural historical activity theory. On knowledge management researcher has taken a second-generation knowledge management viewpoint, following ideas from cultural historical activity theory and developmental work research. Second-generation knowledge management considers knowledge embedded and constructed in collective practices, such as innovation networks or communities of practice (supervisors' work community), which have the capacity to create new knowledge. Analysis and illustration of supervisors' emerging new role is conceptualized in this framework using methodological ideas derived from activity theory and developmental work research. Major findings of the study show that supervisors' emerging new role in a high technology telecommunication organization characterized with high speed of discontinuous change in technologies, products, and in grass-root practices cannot be defined or characterized using a normative management role/model. Their role is expanding two-dimensionally, (1) socially and (2) in new knowledge, and work practices. The expansion in organization and inter-organizational network (social expansion) causes pressures to manage a network of co-operation partners and subordinates. On the other hand, the faster speed of change in technological solutions, new products, and novel customer wants (expansion in knowledge) causes pressures for supervisors to innovate quickly new work practices to manage this change.
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